Necessary Force (8 page)

When he was done, Brad straightened and looked at her. “I don’t see anything from Secret Admirer.”

Georgie closed the lid. “I’m not responsible for when he posts or doesn’t.” She reached up and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

“Headache?”

She nodded.

“You didn’t eat.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“You’re probably hungry.”

Georgie shot from her chair. “Don’t tell me what I am. I’ve agreed to allow you to be in my life and to listen in on my every private conversation because I have no choice. But you don’t get to tell me how I feel. Got that?”

“Stop.”

She didn’t even realize she was poking him in the chest until he wrapped his fingers around her pointer. He held on when she tried to pull away. “I get it. It’s been a tense day which, by the way, you handled well. You need to eat something, then turn on the TV or listen to music, or read, or whatever you do to relax and let the day be over.”

“But it’s not over. There’s tomorrow, and the day after that. And maybe a lot of days after that that will be just as awful as this one.”

When he released her finger she moved away from him. “I hate lying to my friends and editing my words. I’m not good at lying and pretending. It feels awful.”

“And you’re scared. You don’t know who to trust.”

His voice was calm, too calm. She shot him a suspicious look. “I suppose they train agents in how to handle the irrational and hysterical. I’m not either of those things. I’m angry. And I can handle that alone. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, maybe?”

“That’s Superman. Our motto is Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity: FBI.”

Georgie flashed him a ghost of a smile despite her anger. “Then take your doubtful integrity and go be loyal and brave somewhere else.”

He turned and walked out.

Curious to have sent him into retreat so easily, she followed. He was heading toward her kitchen. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs, turkey bacon, and a bowl of grapes.

“I didn’t buy that.”

He smiled but didn’t glance at her as he handed her the fruit. “I did. If we’re going to live together for a few days we needed to have supplies.” He set a container of feta cheese next to the other items and pulled out a bag of spinach. “I’m having an omelet. Want part?”

Georgie didn’t answer but she leaned against the counter and plucked a grape and put it in her mouth.

He opened three drawers before he found a knife. “There’s wine in the fridge. Want to open it?”

“You drink on the job?”

“That would be a no. It’s for you. Take a glass and go chill while I get this ready.”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting at her two-person table that sometimes served as desk, dining room table, or an extra flat surface when needed, sharing the best omelet she’d had in a long time.

Brad smiled as she gobbled up his effort. He sliced off a section of his and served it to Zander, who had settled himself under his handler’s feet. “Were you successful today with your hunt for yellow?”

Georgie stopped chewing. “How did you know? Oh, you were listening to my conversations.”

“Actually, I noticed you were photographing yellow things this morning. Zander. The smear of eggs. The vase by the door in the hotel room.” He chewed a bit of turkey bacon before continuing. “The shot of the Washington Monument was inspired. I never think of it as being yellow. But it looked that way in the sunset this evening.”

“You noticed that?”

He nodded. “You told me that when something attracts your eye, you take a picture of it. I noticed that things you took pictures of today were yellow.”

Georgie stared at him. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, as the youngest of five children she had always had to compete for attention from two loving but very busy parents. Fairly early on, she’d decided to observe the world instead of trying to dominate it. Pictures allowed her to capture something so she could study it at her leisure. Her photographs had taken her from work on the high school yearbook to a fine arts degree in college. But fine arts photos couldn’t be counted on to pay the bills. Working as an AP freelancer allowed her to have a regular paycheck and still maintain her artistic freedom. People didn’t notice photographers. If she was lucky, they noticed the results.

Yet, Brad was different. He paid attention to her, not just her work. But maybe that was his job.

“It’s not about the job.”

“You read minds, too?”

He smiled. “Your face is an open book. My job is full of complicated people who almost never willingly reveal what they are thinking and feeling. With you, I don’t have to guess.”

“That sounds deadly dull.”

“The opposite. It’s endlessly fascinating, like watching a river flowing, no two moments the same.”

He, too, had unexpected depths. She really,
really
hoped it wasn’t just part of his job description.
Insert yourself in the suspect’s world, become friends
. She’d fallen for it before. Damn him for his attractiveness.

“What were you taking pictures of that day at the Senate Office Building?”

Georgie frowned. “Ah, I don’t—. Blue. I was taking blue pictures.”

“What upset you?” She didn’t have to ask him why he asked the question. Her face had, as he’d just explained, given her away. It was one of the liabilities of being a redhead. Her complexion gave away her thoughts.

“It was a bad week. The guy I had broken up with months ago works for AP, too, as a journalist. Suddenly, he shows up at my door saying he thinks he left some old work he needs for his portfolio on my mainframe. We had done some collaborations for AP when we were together. He wrote the words and I provided the pictures. I made the mistake of letting him search for it while I worked on my laptop in the next room. I’m pretty certain he erased a catalog of my work I’d spent weeks putting together for AP.”

“Weak shit bastard.”

Georgie smiled. “It was backed up, but yeah.”

“What else?”

“I’d also just learned that a friend has inoperable brain cancer. They did an operation on him several months ago but the latest test results revealed that the operation didn’t get it all and they can’t go in again. That news really threw me.”

“That would be Frank Keller.”

She sighed and put down her fork. “I depend on him. He’s my photography editor at the AP office here in D.C. That means he’s responsible for archiving all of the images that are submitted by every photographer they buy from. More importantly, he has final say-so over which photos are chosen to be sent out for use by the news outlets.”

“What blue things did you capture the day you covered the Senate Office Building ceremony?”

His question surprised her. Most people would have offered their sympathy before forging ahead.

“It’s hard to say since I never got to review them. I was using my broken camera.”

“How does this exercise in color help you as a photographer?”

“It’s part of my routine to keep a fresh perspective on the world. An artist’s experience. Each morning I pick something simple, a color or a shape or an idea, and then I take pictures of whatever seems to fit into that category during my day. It’s not a conscious choice. That day I photographed any blue thing that caught my eye. I don’t really remember what they were.”

Brad finished the final bite of his omelet and washed it down with a gulp of water.

When he turned to look at her, her heart shifted into a faster rhythm before he even spoke. “The bomb was tucked inside a blue backpack. Could you have taken a picture of a blue backpack?”

Georgie closed her eyes, trying to remember. But she’d drunk one glass, maybe a bit more of the Chardonnay he’d purchased and nothing would gel. “Maybe. In preparation for the ceremony, I was using a telescopic lens so I might have just taken the blue color that came through without knowing what the object was.”

“Then you might have captured the bomber, too. Maybe he was still carrying it. Or holding it.”

Georgie’s eyes popped open. “Dear god, I wonder if that’s true?”

“What did you do with those pictures?”

She just looked at him. “You, too?”

His expression didn’t change but something in his gaze softened. “Tell me why you were using a telescopic lens.”

She smiled. “Contrary to the way they are portrayed in movies and on TV as having up-close and unlimited access to public figures, most photographers are relegated to a cordoned-off section, often at the back of the room so that we won’t interfere with crowd shots. We can be fifty, sixty, sometimes half a stadium away from the ceremony or event we are supposed to be recording.”

Brad thought about that for a second and then pushed his chair back. “Would you excuse me? I need to check on something.”

Georgie frowned at his retreating back. But then her phone rang.

“Hi, Frank. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just need your originals from the photo shoot you did down by the Tidal Basin. We’ve had some interest in a commissioned job for you. They want to see recent samples of your open-air work.”

“I’ll have to sort through them, Frank. There are over a hundred. Tomorrow soon enough?”

“Or you could just give me your password and let me choose. I’m your editor. I know what they’re looking for and which ones to send them. Give me fifteen minutes to get in, download, and out. Then you can change your code and everything’s safe.”

Ordinarily, Georgie wouldn’t have hesitated but she realized that allowing Frank access would cause him to pop up on the FBI’s suspect list. He had enough problems. “Tell you what. I’ll grab the entire folder now and e-mail it to you.”

“That’s my girl. Knew I could count on you, Georgie. By the way, that apartment I told you about? I’ll be able to get the key on Saturday. Come look at it with me?”

“Sure.”

As soon as she hung up, she went to the Cloud, extracted the file, and uploaded it to Frank. Thirty seconds and it was a done deal.

“Who called?”

Georgie looked up to find Brad had returned. “Work.” She really didn’t want to lie anymore to anyone today so she stood up and grabbed her plate. “I’m exhausted. Going to bed.”

He took the plate from her. “I clean tonight. You cook and clean tomorrow.”

Brad waited until she closed the door to her room. Even then, the small one-bedroom apartment seemed like a closet. He was getting the sleeper sofa until further notice. Zander had commandeered the space beneath the table. But sleeping arrangements weren’t what had his mind in overdrive.

He’d put in a call to Clinton. The unexploded bomb they had found wasn’t very large. In fact, they had commented at the time that the damage it did would be limited to the room. Now he wanted to know exactly what the diameter of the debris field would be for that type of explosion.

He didn’t share his reason with Clinton. It was a crazy idea, possibly a foolish one. But crazy thoughts sometimes turned out to be in sync with a suspect’s.

After four days, Georgie had learned something new, and depressing, about life. A person could only remain terrified for so long. After a while the terror wore down to a dull edgy wariness that made even the world around her seem less vibrant.

“It’s like my visual sense has been bleached.” She looked over at Zander, who had decided that she was okay to cuddle up to on the sofa. She smoothed a hand over his silky head. “Think of it this way. It’s like being you with a stuffy nose.”

Zander licked her hand as he gazed up at her with eyebrows that danced over soulful dark eyes.

“I know. I’m talking to a dog. Just like your partner does.” That thought jarred her, much in the same way Frank’s response had earlier in the afternoon to her most recent photo spread.

“Junk. Shiny, pop-art photos. I could find better composition in any photo posted on Facebook today. This isn’t photojournalism. These shots are ‘what I did on my vacation’ trivia.” Frank seldom raised his voice. When he did, worlds rocked.

Georgie didn’t argue. Frank was right. And from where she stood—make that sat—it was Special Agent Brad Lawson’s fault. Wherever she went, an agent was just out of range of her vision, spying on her and listening to her every word. It made her awkward, checking and rechecking what she said and did as she interacted with people during her workday. How could she be creative when she knew he or another agent might be lurking somewhere listening to her flush a toilet or watching her adjust her bra? Whenever she was out of her apartment she was miked.

Georgie swung her legs off the sofa and got up. For four days she had lived with her private life torn open and crawled over by strangers who at best thought she was a lead to a mad bomber or, at worst, an accomplice. Yet they had nothing to show for all her exposure, or their efforts.

When tracked down in Lebanon, Tennessee, the man who had phoned her looking for a photo from the day of the would-be bombing turned out to be exactly what he said he was, an uncle of one of the award recipients. When he didn’t receive a response from Georgie, he had tried another photographer and obtained the photo he proudly showed to the agents who came to his door.

As for Secret Admirer, he had disappeared. Not one message from him had appeared on her blog since her return to D.C. At Brad’s urging, she had even directed a couple of messages to him. No reply.

As Zander calmly watched, Georgie paced her living area, trying not to step on the duffle bag stored in one corner or the pair of tactical boots stacked next to it.

Brad was neat, and quiet and respectful of her things. If that wasn’t enough to drive her wild, he was kind. She returned alone after each working day only to have him come through the door minutes later with Zander on a leash. Often she hadn’t even had a chance to kick off her shoes. After they compared notes on her day, he went to shower and change. The evenings were the worst. He was quiet when she wasn’t in the mood for talking, chatty when she was. He liked whatever she cooked. Watched whatever she wanted to on TV. Or, like last night, when she didn’t feel like cooking, he had gone out and brought back Thai food. He was like the dream boyfriend … except for one big huge deficiency. He never touched her.